Trails of Tears
by WebstersBook99
Summary: Two young women with dark secrets are forced to run from an organization that discovers a way to steal people's abilities.


Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with Heroes. I am not making money off of it in any way. The only parts of this story that I claim to own are the characters Leah, parts of her family, and Sakura along with parts of her family. Also, I have been developing this idea for several months so if this is similar to another story online, I promise I didn't steal the idea. I more than likely was not aware of it.

A/N: Hello everyone! Just a few things I'd like to explain before you read.

First off, I love feedback so please review if you have a chance. With that said, however, I would like constructive criticism and anything that can help better my writing. I understand that this first chapter is wordy and most likely boring. Everything will start to pick up in the next two to three chapters I promise. If you have something mean to say, please don't say it. It's a waste of your time, as well as mine, to review with 'U totes suc!' or anything that involves chat speak except for, of course, 'LOL' and 'LMAO' and such things like that.

Second, Leah's powers will be explained in full as time goes on. There are limitations to her powers so when you're done with this chapter, don't think she's all-powerful because she really isn't. You'll see what I mean when she has her first encounter with Sylar as well as the various other bad guys in this story.

Lastly, have fun! Thank you for reading!

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Chapter One

"What is your favorite childhood memory?"

Leah looked up at Nancy, a forty-something year old nurse, from her yogurt and thought for a moment. Leah hadn't been asked that question in a while. Not since a college psychology class.

Her answer now was what it had been then, "The summer before I went college I went hiking through the Rockies for a few weeks with my aunt and uncle."

"No," Nancy said with a slight frown. "I mean during your childhood! You know, younger than twenty, older than three?"

It was hard to reply to that because Leah didn't remember much from her childhood. She remembered small pieces of it, but in general what happened to her up to the age of fifteen or sixteen was a fog of confusion. She remembered her mother, father, and her twin sister, but other than that…blackness.

Leah brushed her brown bangs out of her brown eyes and looked at her companion. Nancy, two hundred pounds, short, with frizzy red hair had a reputation for throwing out random thoughts. Leah redirected her brown eyes to her yogurt cup and began to swirl the spoon around. She had been taken by surprise and didn't know how to respond.

"Christmas with the parents when I was ten. They bought me a battery operated hot pink convertible. Best Christmas ever," Leah said. It was a lie. There hadn't been a hot pink convertible, nor had her parents been there. They had been dead at that point.

"Okay," Nancy said with a smile. "What about your worst memory?"

The image of a young boy around the age of nine flashed before her eyes. Leah could remember the look of pain on the poor boy's face and the screams that escaped his lips. The image of blood ran through her mind like water as she watched, again, as the boy was ripped into pieces.

Leah felt her heart pound nervously. She was twenty-three years old and the memory still haunted her. It would have haunted her less had it not been for the fact that _she_ had ripped him apart. The boy had been throwing rocks at Leah and her twin sister Anna. Leah had been so infuriated by the young boy that she let her anger get the best of her.

Anna had stepped in after that, put the boy back together, and healed him. Leah knew that the boy was alive somewhere. She just wasn't sure if he remembered what had happened to him or whether he had believed it to be a terrible nightmare.

Unfortunately for Leah, it was more than a nightmare. Every day proved a challenge for the young woman. Stress often triggered the curse that lived inside her body. While she hadn't had a problem since she was in her teens, if she let her emotions get the best of her Leah was positive that only bad things could happen. Someone who could tear people apart with their mind was dangerous and she would give anything to not have the ability to do so.

Leah searched for another memory, but the next memory was similar to the young boy. Only she was older and there were more people. She had been kidnapped at the age of fifteen and was experimented on. Leah remembered the pain they had inflicted, the scars they had created, and that she had become angry and scared.

Again there was a memory of blood, but it was clouded by the same fog that covered most of her life. After that she remembered waking up in the desert outside of Las Vegas and that her aunt was there. Aunt Jeanie, strong and protective, led Leah to a car and took her back home to Northern Virginia.

Leah was about to make up another story when the door to the lounge burst open and in ran Tanya, another nurse.

"Come on ladies. A gang battle erupted on the other side of town. We're getting some gunshot victims," Tanya said before she exited the room hurriedly. Leah stood up immediately, ran to her locker, and grabbed her stethoscope. It was about to be another eventful night as a nurse in Phoenix.

Sakura Shinota strolled through the large glass doors of the R&E Pharmaceutical Company in Los Angeles. Her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail and her dark rimmed glasses sat lazily on her nose. She stepped through the metal detector and climbed into one of the elevators. In her arms were a stack of papers and files, and her old ratty, red backpack was slung over her shoulder. She exerted confidence, pose, and maturity...

That was until Sakura suddenly sneezed and almost split the contents in her arms onto the floor.

She hit the button for the laboratories on Level B3 and after sometime stepped out into the cold, cement walls of the basement that had been her work area for the past couple of months. Sakura was fresh out of college and had been given an excellent job thanks to her father's influence in the company.

Her parents, both Japanese immigrants, had come to America when Sakura was just six months old and ever since had expected nothing but the absolute best from their daughter. In High School, Sakura had to have at least a 3.9 and had to be in the Honors Society. It was her parents dream for her to be a geneticist.

'This sucks!' Sakura said as she placed the files onto her desk and reached for her lab coat. She didn't particularly like her job.

It mostly had to do with the fact that R&E Pharmaceuticals had employed her to discover the weaknesses in people with special abilities.

Every time she was sent out to the secondary location to do tests on the 'specimens' they received, Sakura felt a sick twist in her gut. Recently they had sent a living sample to the major headquarters and it took all the strength Sakura could muster not to set the 'specimen' free.

As she rounded the corner she saw the 'specimen' in his cage. It was a young boy of nine years old who sat huddled in a corner with his arms wrapped tightly around his knees.

"Sakura!" Called out Rick, one of the lab technicians. "We got the test results back. He's free of any diseases. The superiors want to begin the extraction process as soon as possible."

The 'extraction process' made Sakura cringe every time she thought of it. It was a typical procedure. Skin, blood, and other samples would be taken, but then the 'specimen' would have to be transported to a medical lab where a brain tissue sample would be taken. Sakura hated it.

"Cool," Sakura said slowly as she stared at the boy. The boy was known to be able to take the powers of others and transfer them to other people. He was crucial to the experiments the company did as he could take the powers of a dangerous psychopath, such as that of a man known as Sylar, and transfer them to someone else.

The boy had been discovered when he transferred the powers of one of R&E's agents into his father, who then proceeded to kill the agent. After several months of searching, the boy had been taken into custody and the boy's father had been eliminated.

Sakura felt a queasy feeling bubble in her stomach as she stared at the defenseless boy. It was sad that he had lost his father and that no one was there to protect him. It made Sakura shiver when she thought of all that the company wanted to do to this boy. She made her way back to her desk and sat down.

"I hear that Reed wants to begin to take the powers of all the 'Specimens'," Rick said as he turned back towards Sakura.

"Why?"

"Have no clue," Rick replied. "Hey, are you busy later tonight?"

"What?" she asked as she looked up at Rick. This was the third time this week that he had asked her out.

"You know? I mean, would you like to go out to eat tonight? Maybe to a movie?"

"I can't Rick, I have to be here early tomorrow to begin the extraction process," Sakura said as she began to pick up piles of paperwork.

"Why not do it today?"

"Because I have to fill out the paper work and do the pre-procedure examination," she stated apologetically. "Sorry."

Rick sighed and shook his head.

"Maybe tomorrow," he suddenly said as he walked away. Sakura rolled her eyes and almost wanted to stomp her foot, but caught the gaze of the boy in the small monitor on her desk. He looked scared and was alone.

It was all Sakura could do to not open the door to the cage and let the poor boy go.

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A/N: Thanks again to those who have read. Please review!


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